"Thank You All! Your Love Has Broken the Curse and Freed My Soul"
Welcome all to reading my first article of 2024! To kick off the new year of 2024—I just wanted to say thank you to every single person who has ever read my blog in 2023!
According to my WIX traffic reports, most of my blog's visitors come from California, Texas, and my home city of Chicago. I hope to attract more visitors as I post new—intriguing—and upbeat content that you won’t want to miss out on. (The photo is of me in my first screenwriting class)
The fact that people from Chicago, California, and Texas, and from other states, took the time to look at my website—means the world to me! Many thanks to all! As I continue my journey in the writing field, I hope that each of my articles and the endless amount of research will bring you something new along with most recent stories to my blog.
Aside from that, right now, my goal is to catch this dream for 2024—to roll myself in the snow in Alaska to appreciate the cold and to chase the waves in Hawaii all day in the sun.
What Motivates Me to Continue Blogging After So Many Months for My Lovely and Attractive Viral Audience?
To be open: I started this blog to just publish my creative writing pieces and short stories and bits of my life because I thought it would be fun. So I didn't see anything beyond that point until I learned that—writing is a business!
Songs—film scripts—and news coverages rely on writing. Writing is a powerful tool. So I applied for this internship in journalism once but didn't hear back because I didn't have enough experience outside of college.
So I hired myself as a self-employed writer, where I research, write, edit, and publish articles on the web to my blog on—What, Why, When, Where, Who, How—to gain journalism experience and establish myself as an editor-in-chief someday.
I'm currently brainstorming for the next topic to do a case study on. I want to discuss a variety of topics—such as ghetto news in Chicago (or other major cities), world news, celebrity gossip, crime stories, or the month's trending topic.
Self-discipline is what drives us to achieve our goals, not by motivation. With the strength of self-discipline, we can become whoever we dream—if we are willing to fight for it.
A Woman Who Went Missing in Guatemala's Lake
On October 19, 2023—Nancy Ng, 29, went missing while kayaking in Guatemala's lake. The incident occurred at a yoga retreat in Guatemala with Nancy and 10 other people. During the past three months, she has not been seen or heard from.
Before Nancy’s disappearance, multiple participants reported that life jackets were not offered at the retreat. Some participants said they felt rushed when renting kayaks, and the employees told them to "go, just go!”
In a video, all 10 participants, including Nancy, kayak into Guatemala's lake without life jackets. Nancy is seen waving and smiling at the camera before paddling farther into the lake with another woman, Christina Blazek. However, eight out of 10 participants returned from the lake, while Christina and Nancy remained in the water. It was windy that day.
Christina—The Last Person Who Saw Her Alive
Christina Blazek—seen in the picture below—claimed Nancy wanted to go for a swim, despite Christina's warning not to enter the water. Then Nancy got out of her kayak and drowned in the water. Christina claimed she had helped Nancy, but Nancy quickly vanished in the water, stating that the incident was an accident. When Christina returned to land from kayaking, others reported seeing her distress.
Christina's lawyer told KABC news: “[Christina] kept one leg in her kayak and one leg in [Nancy’s] kayak and tried to get back to her ... and got close to her. And then apparently, [Christina] lost the kayak again and she turned around to go back to get the kayak again, and when she turned back around—Ms. Ng was gone.” - Chris Gandere
However, no one reported Nancy missing for 24 hours. The other ten people who arrived with Nancy left the yoga retreat quickly and flew back to the United States to make the police report. Only two out of 10 people spoke up about Nancy: Eduardo Rimada, her yoga instructor, and Christina Blazek, the last person to see her alive.
Many people accused Christina of not helping the Ng family find Nancy by ignoring the family for four weeks after the incident. On Nov. 15, 2023, her lawyer stated in an ABC News interview that she had been cooperating with the FBI and told Guatemalan police what she knew. She has not contacted Ng's family in order to recover from the trauma of witnessing Nancy's drowning.
"Our workers offered life jackets, and the group declined."
Eduardo Rimada did confirm that he did not notify Ng's family of her disappearance until four hours later, and he refused to discuss any additional details with them. However, Eduardo told NBC News that the yoga retreat company did not offer them life jackets, and "no safety precautions were given." (The man in the photo with Nancy is Eduardo Rimada).
The company owners told several news outlets, "Our workers offered life jackets, and the group declined." They claimed that the entire group left their hotel within 12 hours of the incident without paying for their kayak rentals. Their staff also mentioned the group's unusual behavior—quiet and rushing out of the hotel—and never told them about Nancy's alleged drowning. While searching in the water—Nancy's kayak was found, but not her body.
The Ng family launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to hire a helicopter search and rescue team to find Nancy in Guatemala's lake, and it raised more than $120,000. And the Ng family pleaded on social media for the ten people last seen with Nancy, as well as anyone with additional information, to come forward and help in bringing Nancy home.
My Commentary
I believe the world would be a much better place if everyone could be honest and tell the truth right away. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world. There are actual people, like Christina Blazek, who would ignore and say nothing, even if they saw someone crying for many weeks on the news. This just shows that—being silent is more harmful than helpful.
I understand Christina's point of view after witnessing Nancy drown in the lake, as she claimed. I understand that witnessing someone's death in front of your eyes is a traumatic experience that can take weeks, months, or even years to recover from.
However, the group's decision to rush out of the hotel, not inform the hotel's employees about Nancy's alleged drowning, and fly home all within 12 hours is odd. They waited for 24 hours to make a police report about Nancy's disappearance—which is alarming, too.
I can understand the Ng family's frustration when they are doing everything in their power to help a loved one, but the people who last saw Nancy ignored them for weeks—as if their loved one didn't matter. It hurts. So it's understandable for the Nancy family's reaction to crying on the news about Christina's refusal to contact them after the incident.
"It's heartless. It doesn't seem ethical. It doesn't seem human to hold information from what [Christina] seems to be claiming as an accident. It bothers me that they can move on without giving my family closure," Nicky told ABC News.
Credits:
Head Editor/Freelance Writer: Michael David Melero
Assistant Editor/Proofreader: Jasmine Ramirez
01.17.2024
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